


every night i try my best to dream (tomorrow makes it better)

by liquidsky



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: But Also Not Really and It's Not Really Described On-Screen, Full Disclosure: Nothing's Really Described On-Screen Here, M/M, Near Death Experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 07:59:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17421998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liquidsky/pseuds/liquidsky
Summary: In which Ronan nearly dies and they have feelings.





	every night i try my best to dream (tomorrow makes it better)

**Author's Note:**

> whattup fellas. i wrote this in 2014—back when i used to be a bit more generally inspired than i am nowadays—and didn't share because i thought it was too short and worried that it didn't properly have a beginning or an ending, but today i went back to read some of my old writing exercises and ended up quite enjoying this one, so i figured "why not?". here it is. the title is a line from last hope by paramore.

A soft song. The trees are singing, the understated melody ringing through the woods and—no, not the trees. The wind – better. The wind is singing, flying softly past the world and this world that feels a lot like his own. There’s a river. He’s seen it before: the water clear, quiescent as its waves break over the shore. It must have been lovely once, now it just feels empty, just another forgotten thing in the far edge of Oblivion. A noise – cold, dark, terrifying, he thinks, looks up, looks. Up, up. Up—up. Don’t look down, don’t look: 

Down. 

He thinks he feels it before he sees it: the wet, semi-runny consistency of dark—bright—red. He is bleeding. His skin torn and gushing and this is. He needs to get out, get out, (desperate, “Ronan,”), get out. The world starts shaking, he thinks the sky might fall apart at any given moment and he is still bleeding, bloodredbloodgetoutbloodred—RONAN. 

There’s a face, its eyes huge. Blurry, too, the world is blurry and there’s undated mold in the ceiling brought along with the awareness that the sky didn’t, in fact, fall apart. There are hands, one two three four five slender fingers digging into the soaked skin of his—soaked? (Why is it) The world isn’t falling apart but he’s still bleeding all the same, the rough-edged voices above him slipping slippery through the cracks of awareness and is he. He is. Tick-tock, “Ronan, open your eyes,” tick-tock, why did they decide to put a goddamn clock in the middle of. Living room – home – Gansey, is he. Where. (Dream), “Wake up, Lynch, dammit, wake up” the world is shaking again, shaking like. The dream. His lids are too heavy, when did eyelids become heavy, why can’t he open his eyes: bleeding. There’s a tiny itty bitty second of barely there consciousness in which he thinks he must have brought it with him. Not again, please—God, not again, he can’t. Adam. Why won’t he stop bleeding, why can’t he open his eyes, why is the world – 

– washing – 

– away – 

Beep. Beepitty, beepitty. Beep. There’s only purple, the deep shade of purple that the behind of his eyelids gets when the sun hits them. He opens his eyes, slowly, not too heavy but heavy enough that the simple task of keeping them open feels like a ridiculous chore. He looks down: there’s an IV placed into his left arm and a nasal cannula—there’s a vague thought, “is that what it’s called?”—into his nose and. He doesn’t try to remove either of those, he thinks he read somewhere that only heroes ever rip those off and jump out of bed – he is not a hero, nor is he a dumbass. He’s just, well, someone who’s brought another nightmare back to life, apparently. He looks over the room, wrinkles his forehead as sunlight hits a cloud of dust, focuses his eyes on the weary shape of Adam, curled up on one of those uncomfortable hospital beds. Gansey must be out dealing with things, as he always is. He is thankful for that, more than he could ever know how to say, so he doesn’t. He watches Adam, then. Lets his eyes travel down the curves and lengths of his body, notices the way his face looks blotchy, his arms tight around himself like he’s cold—or scared. Scared for him, and isn’t that the cruelest thing, that Ronan, who’d so often tried to show Adam he didn’t have to be scared anymore, would be the cause of his fear. There’s something sharp about it, hard to swallow around. It’s happened again, after everything. He’d thought he knew how to control them now, turns out: he was wrong. And it nearly cost him his life, something he didn’t think too much of until— 

“Hey,” Adam says, mouth stretching around a yawn. He stretches, rubs his eyes. He stands up, then, walking slowly towards Ronan’s hospital bed, a small—soft, so, so soft—smile playing on his lips. He leans forward, catches Ronan’s left hand to hold it in his, intertwining their fingers, “You’ve scared the shit out of us,” he starts. 

Ronan’s about to apologize when Adam squeezes his hand, cuts him off, “Don’t ever do that again, ok. I can’t—you’re all I—just,” he stops, breathes through his nose, swallows, “You, Gansey. You’re – all I have,” 

“I—” 

“Wait, would you just? I need to get it out right now and I need to get it out fast otherwise I’ll never say it,” Adam says, Ronan waits, “You were dying, Ronan, you were bleeding out and I could not stop thinking about that day and that you would die before I got to tell you—” 

“—Stop,” Ronan stops him, “Parrish, I swear to God, if you’re saying this just because I almost d—” 

“Shut up,” Adam says, “I mean it, shut the hell up and let me finish, ok? I’m not saying this because you almost died, I’m saying this because I mean it and I know that I’m not. That I won’t be. I’ll – never – be – good at this, I don’t think I even know how to love someone the proper way but. If anything like this ever happens again, I don’t wanna have to think about all the times I should have kissed you and I didn’t.” 

There are a few beats of silence, insane, overwhelming silence in which they do nothing but stare at each other, their fingers like goddamn ridiculous lego pieces, fitting together like that’s what they were always meant to do and. Ronan starts smiling, Adam smiles, too, both of them cautious, 

“You were scared,” Ronan says. 

“I was fucking _terrified_ ,” Adam says, “Still am,” he adds. And Ronan nods, brings their tangled hands to his mouth and presses a small kiss to the back of Adam’s. This is new. He knows it’s probably a lot more confusing to Adam than it ever was to him, even if—well, it doesn’t get less scary just because it’s less confusing, Ronan thinks. But then again, the world has always had a way of making things harder for Parrish. He hopes this won’t be one of those. 

They’re smiling at each other, their hands resting over Ronan’s ches—”Uh-ahm,” someone clears their throat very audibly and that’s it, spell broken. They both turn their hands and what they find is Gansey, his lithe form leaning against the door frame and smirking, one of his brows raised, “So, I take it that this is going to be a thing from now on?” 

Gansey’s obvious amusement when they both breathe out a “yep” is shown in the form of a shit-eating grin. He probably thinks he looks a lot more shrewd than he actually does when his grin gives way to a smirk and he says, “Finally.”

**Author's Note:**

> i tried to experiment with punctuation and rhythm and stuff like that in the most basic way possible and like. i _guess_ it worked alright? the jury's still out on that one. thank you very much for reading if you did and have a lovely day <3


End file.
